JIVERSITY OF GEORC
OCT 2 7 1997
LiSRARlES
DEPOSITORS
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012 with funding from
LYRASIS IVIembers and Sloan Foundation
http://archive.org/details/whitehousegarden001997
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASH INGTON
October 1997
Welcome to the White House!
The President and I are pleased that you have chosen to visit the White
House Gardens and State Rooms. Your walk today through the
grounds and State Floors of the White House is an experience unique
to this country. Only the United States offers, on a regular basis, free
public tours of the residence of its Chief Executive. During the past
year, over 1.5 million people toured the White House, showing that as
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt so appropriately stated, it is a
house that is "owned by all the American people."
Many of the flowers, trees and shrubs that you will see today have been
planted by, or in memory of, former Presidents. As a part of this
tradition. President Clinton and I have planted on the grounds
dogwood trees, a linden, an American elm and a willow oak. On the
following pages you will find a detailed plan for the commemorative
plantings. Also included is information on each of the pieces currently
on display in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden. They are part of
Twentieth Century American Sculpture at the White House,
Exhibition VI.
On your tour, you will proceed through the Jacqueline Kennedy
Garden, along the driveway, through the Children's Garden and the
Rose Garden and into the Residence itself for a visit to the State
Rooms. Along the way, a collection of photographs features some of
the historic events that have occurred at the White House.
During the past year, the lawns and gardens of the White House have
been the scene of both historical events and informal entertainment of
friends and family. At every gathering, guests sense the loving care
that has been given to this beautiful house and grounds by all of the
First Families who have lived here.
It is my hope that as you tour today you will enjoy the beauty and
tranquillity of this special place and that you will share with the
President and me the sense of our nation's history that it evokes.
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Few places provide such a sense of the continuity of American
history as the grounds of the White House. All our Presidents
except George Washington have lived and worked on this knoll
overlooking the Potomac River. And it was Washington himself
who selected the site, allowing for extensive grounds, which would
be landscaped as the "President's Park."
John Adams, the second President, moved into the mansion in the
fall of 1800, describing the grounds as a barren expanse strewn
with building rubble and abandoned brick kilns. Thomas Jefferson
first planned the landscape of the grounds when he followed
Adams to the White House in 1801. It was Adams' son. President
John Quincy Adams, inaugurated in 1825, who loved the White
House grounds most of all. He employed a full-time gardener and
developed extensive plantings, some of which he set out himself. A
stately American elm planted by him survived until the fall of
1991; it was the oldest of over 30 commemorative trees planted by
the Presidents and First Ladies throughout the past. A grafted tree
propagated from the original John Quincy Adams' elm was planted
in the same location by Barbara Bush on December 5, 1991.
All our Presidents and First Ladies have been, in a sense, avid
gardeners. Each has made a mark on the grounds of the White
House. Jefferson constructed mounds on the south as visual barriers
to give privacy to the house; the ancient magnolia trees to the left
of the south front were brought in the 1830s from Andrew Jackson's
home in Tennessee. There is evidence a fountain on the south side
was there prior to 1861; the fountain on the north side was built for
Ulysses S. Grant in 1873.
Early in the 20th century, as the city of Washington grew closer to
the venerable President's Park, the grounds took on a more stately
appearance with the introduction of numerous evergreen trees and
shrubs to preserve the remote and pastoral character the house
had known since it was built. On the north grounds was developed
an open grove, largely of elm trees, shading the lawn that stretches
from Pennsylvania Avenue to the mansion. On the south grounds
deep borders of forest were planted, flanking the open carpet of
lawn that slopes toward the Potomac River.
The spectacular view of the south was planned in 1935, in
anticipation of the building of the Jefferson Memorial. Numerous
trees were removed from the end of the lawn to allow for a full
vista of the Memorial, completed during World War II, and the
landscape of Virginia beyond.
At the present time the White House grounds retain the lawn to
the north and the great open greensward to the south. Near the
base of the house, drinking the south sun, are newer and m.ore
intimate gardens of a formal character. To the east is the
Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, which Hillary Rodham Clinton has
used since October 1994 to display a changing collection of American
sculpture. On the west, tucked between the mansion and the West
Wing, is the celebrated Rose Garden, where Ellen Wilson planted
the first roses in 1913. It has since become one of the most famous
gardens in the world.
For all their timelessness and beauty, the White House gardens
and grounds are in constant use by the President, and are enjoyed by
thousands every year. The Rose Garden is in use almost every day,
hosting official signing ceremonies, impromptu news conferences, or
champion sports teams visiting the White House. The south lawn
is used for numerous events, such as arrival ceremonies for visiting
heads of state and the annual Congressional picnic.
On Easter Monday, the President and First Lady open the gates to
throngs of children who come to the traditional Easter Egg Roll.
This event originally started at the Capitol and was moved to the
White House by President Hayes in 1879. The presence of little
children in the ongoing story of the White House is also
commemorated today in the Children's Garden, located in the
groves on the west side of the south lawn. It contains impressions in
bronze of the hands and feet of the grandchildren of recent
Presidents.
Gardens are living environments. They do not survive without care
and constant improvements. The White House gardens and grounds
we see today have been in the making for 200 years, tying us to our
ancestors in a special but real way. In this respect, these grounds
are a unique monument to our past.
COMMEMORATIVE PLANTINGS
1. Southern Magnolia - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1942)
2. Southern Magnolia - Warren G. Harding (1922, replaced 1947)
3. Jacqueline Kennedy Garden (1965)
4. Willow Oak - Ronald Reagan (1988)
5. Little Leaf Linden - George Bush & Queen Elizabeth II (1991)
6. White Pine - Gerald R. Ford (1977)
7. Eastern Redbud - George Bush (1990)
8. Northern Red Oak - Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959)
9. Patmore Ash - George Bush (1989)
10. White Dogwood - Bill & Hillary Clinton
11. White Dogwood - Bill & Hillary Clinton
12. Purple Beech - George Bush (1991)
13. American Elm - John Q. Adams (original 1826, Barbara Bush 1991)
14. White Oak - Herbert Hoover (1935)
15. Willow Oak - Bill & Hillary Clinton (1993)
16. Japanese Maple - Rosalynn Carter (1978)
17. Japanese Maple - Frances Folsom Cleveland (1893)
18. American Elm - Bill & Hillary Clinton (1993)
19. Children's Garden - Lyndon B. Johnson (2969)
(1995)
(1996)
20. White Dogwood (3) - Hillary Rodham Clinton (1994)
21. Cedar of Lebanon - ]iMM\ Carter (1978)
22. White Oak - Herbert Hoover (1931)
23. Pin Oak - Dwight D. Eisenhower (1958)
24. Little Leaf Linden - Bill Clinton (1993)
25. Little Leaf Linden - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1937)
26. Willow Oak - Lyndon B. Johnson (1964)
Saucer Magnolia (4) - John F. Kennedy (1962)
28. Rose Garden (1913)
29. Southern Magnolia (2) - Andrew Jackson (1830)
Sugar Maple - Ronald Reagan (1984)
31. Fern Leaf Beech - Patricia Nixon (1972)
32. Fern Leaf Beech - Lady Bird Johnson (1968)
33. American Elm - Betty Ford (1975)
34. English & American Boxwood - Harry S. Truman (1952)
35. Red Maple - Jimmy Carter (1977)
36. White Saucer Magnolia (2) - Nancy Reagan (1982)
37. W/j/fe OflA: - Franklin D. Roosevelt (1935)
38. Scarlet Oak - Benjamin Harrison (1889)
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Twentieth Century American Sculpture
At the White House
Exhibition VI
Exhibition VI of the series Twentieth Century American Sculpture at
the White House is subtitled Honoring Native America. This
is the first installation in the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden that
presents works by Native American artists. It is also the first
showing ever in the nation's capital of a large and representative
collection of contemporary Native American sculpture.
The works were created by artists, from many parts of the United
States, whose styles reflect Native cultural heritage as well as
contemporary influences. Their materials include traditional woods,
clay, and stone, together with newer forms in steel, bronze, and
aluminum. Grouped together at the White House, they reflect the
strength of the Native American art movement.
Only a few mainstream American art museums have collected in this
field, and relatively few large-scale works by Native artists are
found in public collections. The Heard Museum in Phoenix, where
contemporary Native art has been a focus for four decades, was
honored to organize this show. Most of the art works are from the
Heard's permanent collection. Others have been loaned generously
by the Anchorage, Alaska, Museum of History and Art; the Gilcrease
Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma; Washington County and the Oregon
College of Arts, Portland, Oregon; and the Wheelwright Museum,
Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Allan Houser (Chiricahua Apache, 1914-1994), widely regarded as
the most influential Native American sculptor and art mentor of our
time, was honored before his death with the National Medal of the
Arts, presented at the White House by Mrs. Clinton. He is
represented in this exhibition by Earth Song, a 1978 work in Alabama
marble.
Three contemporaries of Allan Houser are included. Willard Stone
(Cherokee, 1915-1985) crafted the graceful Ladi/ of Spring from
walnut. George Morrison (Ojibway, b. 1919), was active in the
postwar New York abstract expressionism movement, an influence
suggested in his 1980 stained-cedar Red Totem. John Hoover (Aleut,
b. 1919), continues a long and prolific artistic career with the
recently-created Sea Weed People, a work in bronze.
Bob Haozous (Apache/Navajo/English/Spanish, b. 1943) is a son of
Allan Houser. His 1983 steel sculpture Woman in Love, which
appears to float horizontally before the viewer, is a distinctive
personal evolution of the fluid shapes often used by his father. Doug
Hyde (Nez Perce/ Assiniboine/Chippewa, b. 1946), once a student of
Allan Houser, honors the valor of veterans and warriors with Flag
Song, fashioned from Tennessee pink marble.
Alaska and the Pacific Northwest have produced many important
Native artists and sculptors. Susie Bevins Ericsen/Qimmiqsak
(Inupiat, b. 1941) is of the generation that followed John Hoover. She
is represented by Guardians and Sentinels, a 1994 work in aluminum.
In 1997 R. E. Bartow (Yurok, b. 1946) carved his 26' pole. Untitled,
from the indigenous cedar of the Northwest.
Truman Lowe (Winnebago, b. 1944), is represented by Bird Effigy, an
aluminum sculpture created in 1997. Doug Coffin
(Potawatomi/Creek, b. 1946), evokes the totem tradition in his 28'
contemporary painted steel structure. Earth Messenger Totem.
Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico is home to two of the artists.
Nora Naranjo-Morse (Tewa, b. 1953), an acclaimed poet and film
maker, created the bronze sculpture Khzvee-seng (Woman-Man), c.
1994. Her niece Roxanne Swentzell (Santa Clara, b. 1963) used Pueblo
clay, shaped by the traditional coil-and-scrape technique, for her
1988 figurative grouping. The Emergence of the Clowns.
We at the Heard Museum are very grateful to First Lady Hillary
Rodham Clinton for launching the wonderful series of installations of
twentieth-century American sculpture in the Jacqueline Kennedy
Garden, and for her personal encouragement of this show. Honoring
Native America was organized through the energetic efforts of
Margaret Archuleta (Pueblo/Hispanic), curator of fine art at the
Heard Museum. Our thanks to each of the living artists for their
enthusiastic support, to the other institutions that have lent works
from their collections, to White House Curator Betty C. Monkman
and her highly professional staff, and to our colleagues at the
National Park Service and the National Gallery of Art for
installation assistance.
Martin Sullivan
Director, Heard Museum
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